


S+B

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:29:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22035604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It's a centuries-long, sacred tradition among the pathetically pining to sigh deeply and carve their and their unrequited love's initials on any surface available, and then spend a ridiculous amount of time staring at the said initials, wishing for them to become true all the while ignoring how the universe doesn't work like that and how simply opening their mouth and initiating some real fucking communication would work a lot better.Bucky is 26, a professional 3D modeler, and by now, he really should know better than to act like a lovesick teenager on a regular basis.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 12
Kudos: 73





	S+B

**Author's Note:**

> I have a fever and I really shouldn't be posting anything because I'm fairly sure this is riddled with mistakes etc. (I was halfway through when I realized that the initials I was using were actually wrong ones, aka the other OTP's I used to have in another fandom... *facepalm*... that's the level of cognitive incompetence today, lmao!) But, eh, whatever. For some reason, I woke up with a feverish clarity that I *need* to write something that combines vibes of pre-war Stucky and modern Stucky, but somehow that went completely off the rails and in the end, I just wrote this piece where I took "carving initials" and my dear casual hobby of 3D modeling and smashed them together. Well, it's still combining something old with something new, and I really like what I got out (which... might be fever talk), so here :)

Bucky’s the first to admit that he has a bit of a people-pleasing problem — although he prefers to phrase it as ‘a generalized praise kink’; it sounds naughtier and less psychoanalyzed — but still, Bucky has always got a kick out of getting away with anything small, petty, irrelevant, and against the orders without the authorities noticing.

In middle school, Bucky used to arrange his sentences in the essays and exams so that the first letter of each word, sentence or paragraph spelled out a secret message. It was silly and often turned a five-minute homework into a half an hour project, but the extra layer of challenge on the essays kept him engaged, plus showing off his “A+” marked essays to Steve and letting him find Bucky’s secret messages (which, again, sounded better than ‘immature profanities’) was the real reward: Steve’s snickers made Bucky feel more proud and pleased than even the praise from his teachers.

Now, they are both in their twenties, and it’s been a long time since Bucky’s been forced to write essays or stories… but he never gave up the habit of putting a secret personal mark on everything he does. 

Not that Steve’s aware of it, anymore.

Bucky bites his lip and takes a glance at Steve, who’s sitting on their shared bed, hunched over his tablet in a way that cannot be good for his back.

Living together in a small studio and working next to each other on their freelance projects has been fun, but admittedly, there’s a certain lack of privacy within their limited quarters.

After Bucky is absolutely sure that Steve is absorbed in his own project — sketching a comic book page from the looks of it — Bucky turns his focus back to the 3D model of M4 Sherman, one of the high-detail World War 2 tanks Bucky was commissioned to model for a Youtuber with a history channel. It’s not one of his best-detailed works, because a commission for a Youtuber isn’t nearly the same caliber work as a commission for a vehicle in AAA-videogame or in a movie requiring some CGI assets, but he’s still proud of it, and anyway, a tradition is a tradition.

Bucky zooms in and with a few quick, practiced clicks and drags of the mouse, he carves ‘S+B’ on the side of the model; stretched, blended in the texture and the paint, and subtle enough that nobody should be able to spot it unless they were looking for it and knew exactly where to look for. 

Hyperawareness of Steve’s presence behind him and the risk of Steve looking over to see what Bucky’s doing (even when the chance that he gets what he’s seeing is low) makes Bucky’s heartbeat and the tips of his ears warm up. As soon as he’s done — within a minute — Bucky flips the model around again.

It’s a silly tradition. Foolhardy. Unprofessional. Could get Bucky bad rep and make him lose some big contacts. 

Modelers aren’t meant to leave their personal marks on anything they do. Just like stock photos don’t come with photographer’s signatures in the corner, or ads aren’t signed by the copywriter, the 3D models used everywhere in the media never have the modeler’s stamp.

There’s ‘art’ in the world, and then there’s ‘not-art’. Whereas Steve’s comics and illustrations are in the ‘art’ category and they carry his name, Bucky’s creations are firmly in the ‘not-art’ section.

None of it really, truly bothers Bucky. It’s just how the world is. He gets to do what he loves, he gets paid. Most of the folk don’t get fame or recognition for their work, art or not, and Bucky’s not narcissistic enough to feel wounded or wronged just because his particular field of expertise makes him fall in that category.

But… Bucky does love to rebel against the system. For fun.

Honestly, he blames Don Rosa, vodka, and, of course, Steve.

As a kid, Bucky was obsessed with Don Rosa’s Disney comics. ‘The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck’ cemented his love and passion for comic books and propelled him to search for other comics. The man’s lowkey rebellion against Disney’s refusal to allow the artists to sign their comics, by hiding his D.U.C.K -mark in his works to mark them as his and refusing to leave them as just ‘Disney’s’, stayed at the back of Bucky’s mind all through the years…

… and so when Bucky was finishing up his first 3D stock model before submitting it to a stock model site, at the wise age of eighteen and in the company of vodka he got from Natasha as a goodbye gift before she yeeted herself off to Russia, Bucky got the smart idea to leave a secret mark of his own on the model as well.

‘JBB’ was out of the question simply because it was too easy to connect to him. But instead of coming up with a funny acronym, which in hindsight would have made so much more sense, Bucky, in his tipsy (okay, rather drunk) and pining state, decided to carve ‘S+B’ on the bottom of the modeled car, like a lovesick teenager carving the initials in a tree or under a school desk. 

Of course, he did it ironically and snickering. Well, mostly. Bucky can’t deny that yes, he could have changed his ‘mark’ to something else on the next project.

But he didn’t, and now, after six years, the ‘tradition’ has escalated to the point where there are hundreds of virtual motorcycles, tanks, cars, and helicopters out there with ‘S+B’ carved somewhere in the model. There are tens of thousands of players who have ridden those couple of bikes he made as a last-minute freelance pitch for the latest GTA game, none of the players knowing about the minuscule ‘S+B’ carved on the side of the seat. And when the latest blockbuster racing movie came out, thousands of people went to see it, not knowing that the few CGI cars, which showed up for fifteen seconds in the background before a huge explosion scene, all had ‘S+B’ carved in their seat-belts. 

It’s so ridiculous (and pathetic, and embarrassing, and possibly borderline creepy) that Bucky’s not sure anymore if he would fess up about it to Steve even if somehow they ended up together one day.

Still, he can't stop himself from adding the little marks. Or sometimes, when Steve's not home, pulling up the old files and going through the meshes and sculpts, staring at the hidden secret letters, wondering what would happen if Steve one day noticed one of the marks. 

**Author's Note:**

> (For totally unneeded details which never even made it into the ficlet, Steve and Bucky are living in Bay Ridge area of Brooklyn, 4th or 5th ave, because it seems like one of the most reasonably priced areas and has a nice calm vibe based on the googling. They have a studio flat and both work part-time plus on their art projects, Bucky as 3D modeler specializing in realistic vehicle models and Steve as a 2D artist. 
> 
> Also, Steve's mom is currently volunteering somewhere in Asia as a nurse and keeps contact through Skype once a week, Sam is a model and IG influencer and he travels the world with Riley, Natasha is in Russia currently for undecided reasons, and yeah World War 3 starts two days later as a proper nuclear war showdown, and immediately there's a lot of internet problems as the USA cuts itself off and isolates its internet and doesn't let the knowledge of nuclear war reach its citizens, explaining that the sudden internet isolation is because of a world-wide terrorist attack on the internet. Then Bucky realizes a news pic is fake because he recognizes there's one of his vehicle models, and he's forced to explain the whole 'S+B' thing for Steve. 'The war against terrorism' is declared, but Steve and Bucky wonder about the truth behind everything and what information they can trust, what role their country even played at the start of the new war and what 'side', 'good or evil', would they be fighting for, and for what. Then Bucky's drafted, and Steve decides that fuck it, he has to get to army anyway, and maybe that'll be the only way to figure out the truths anyway. Also, they kiss, and Bucky pined for no reason for years, obviously. The end.)


End file.
